Crown Jewel Ethiopia Aricha Adorsi Washed Kurume CJ1501 – *52801* – 27092 – SPOT RCWHSE

taste

Taste Analysis by Chris Kornman 

One of the most floral coffees we’ve analyzed this season, this coffee from Adorsi is gentle, delicate, and elegantly balanced. We’ve carried a number of Crown Jewels from Aricha in the past, and this flavor profile seems to be somehow ingrained in the terroir of this little corner of Yirgacheffe. Likely the intertwined results of legacy landrace cultivars, traditional processing methods, and generally perfect growing conditions for coffee trees, we’re thrilled to get to work with such a unique example of Ethiopian excellence. 

When I first encountered the coffee on the cupping table I was enamored by its very specific jasmine and sweet mint fragrance. This paired nicely with fruitier notes I wrote down, including white peach, nectarine, melon candy, and powered donut sweetness. 

After dialing the coffee in a little on our roasters, roaster Doris Garrido really nailed it on a recent production cupping, describing the coffee with notes of lemon blossom, soft citric acidity, and even hints of fresh berries. 

Delicate coffees like this sometimes fly under the radar, and I’m really glad to say that the team here has spent a lot of time cupping this one and it just continues to grow on us. We’re featuring the coffee as an espresso in the tasting room already, and are noting delicious flavors ranging from lavender to pineapple to sweet peach.  

source

Source Analysis by Charlie Habegger 

Adorsi is a private washing station located in the Yirgacheffe district, in the heart of southern Ethiopia’s coveted Gedeo Zone. Gedeo is a narrow section of highland plateau dense with savvy farmers and fiercely competitive processors and has been known commercially as Yirgacheffe for many years after the Yirgacheffe district itself, one of Ethiopia’s first areas to fully wash its coffee. As a coffee terroir, Yirgacheffe has for decades been considered a benchmark for beauty and complexity in arabica coffee, and is known for being beguilingly ornate and jasmine-like when fully washed, seductively punchy and sweet when sundried, and hardly requiring an introduction. 

Adorsi is a very young washing station, having only been first established in 2018. Adorsi is owned and operated by Testi Trading PLC, the same suppliers behind some of the top-scoring Sidama coffees we buy each year from Testi Ayla washing station. Testi Trading has grown a lot in the past few years and are a big part of the growth of independent processors and exporters in Ethiopia’s very competitive South, doing the good, laborious work of processing differentiation, traceability, and pushing quality boundaries. 

Adorsi’s farmer contributors are typical in size for the area, which is to say, tiny: half a hectare of coffee per farmer is the average. Cherry is delivered to the washing station daily throughout the harvest months, where it is depulped and fermented for 36-48 hours depending on the local climate. After fermentation is complete the wet parchment is washed in long channels to scrub off residual mucilage and float off the lowest density coffee. Drying occurs under parabolic shade netting for 5-7 days and rotated consistently until reaching a final resting moisture content of 11-12 percent. 

Private processors like Adorsi are admirable businesses. It’s tough being a private processor in Gedeo, as the sheer density and competition among washing stations tends to push cherry prices as high as double throughout a single harvest, and privates often don’t have the backing of a larger union to secure financing, regulate cherry prices, or bring export costs down with centralized milling and marketing. Successful private washing stations like Adorsi, then, need to be not only standout quality processors to stay afloat; they must also be excellent business developers with connections and good community standing in order to continue winning the business of farmers and buyers alike, and stay afloat for the long term. Testi Trading invests in local education among its communities, including in the Aricha kebele, where it has built two primary schools (and has already done similar work in Guji, West Arsi, and Shantawene, Sidama). 

green

Green Analysis by Chris Kornman 

Everything you’d expect from excellent Grade 1 washed Ethiopian coffee is here in the physical specs for this lovely offering from farmers organized around Testi Trading Company’s Adorsi washing station in Aricha. Small screen size is paired with high density and low moisture figures. No surprises here, you’ll need some heat to get this coffee going in the roaster, and should find it to have a great shelf life under good storage conditions. 

Kurume (“Kudhume” in Guji) is a well-known landrace (a wild tree selected “traditionally” for cultivation by farmers) in the Gedeo and Guji areas; it is compact with small fruits, and good yields. In Ethiopia, it’s fairly rare to find a single producer, much less a group of this size, with the kind of cultivar specificity we’ve been provided with here, so we’re excited to share this single-variety lot with you. 

diedrich ir-5

Production Roast Analysis by Doris Garrido 

One thing I have found while roasting this Ethiopia Aricha is that even when green grading the density came in high. My first thought was that starting with a high push and fast roast, and from there it will benefit better from a slightly long Maillard and of course a little longer roast. Here is the reasons I am saying this. First, I did a roast trial on the Diedrich: 5.5 lbs. roast for a total of 7:08 minutes, with a short Maillard and 1:16 seconds of post development. On the cupping table we got bright fruity fragrance, cools slightly simple, dried cranberries, gardenia, hibiscus, jammy Meyer lemon, raw sugar sweetness, sweet clementine, persimmon, hints of floral. Good notes in general, but I knew from the sample we cupped before that this coffee has an enormous potential for floral notes, something that I look on Ethiopian coffees.  

Then I did an 18 lbs. batch on the Loring, and with what I learned from that first roast I ended up doing a longer curve with a little longer development, both in Maillard and at post development. I use the Loring S15 Falcon with 18 lbs. batch. My start temperature was 448F with 100% energy as soon as the machine allowed. 3:18 minutes in drying, 2:44 minutes on yellowing, and 1:20 minutes on post development. I started lowering gas at 355.5F, doing small drops to 65% and then as soon as I hit the first crack guided by the rate of rise looking to maintain a pace to help me finish the roast by the time and temperature I was looking for. For this second roast I collected the following cupping notes: Berrylike, floral, great aromatic, lemon blossom, nice soft citric acid. I loved the result. In other words, this roast allowed the amazing florals of this coffee to come through, with a balance sweetness and acidity that came on this delicious Ethiopia. This was a 7:22 minute roast and since I was using different machines that work with different systems, I cannot compare the numbers from one to each other. 

Lastly, Chris Korman did a roast on the Diedrich 5 lb. batch and from a quick taste I got the floral aroma, orange blossom, the berries, and I went to Cropster to compare the two roasts and confirm my hypothesis. His roast went 8:07 minutes total time, spent 30 seconds more in yellowing and 16 more in post development. In other words, a little longer curve will make Aricha Adorsi opens better. Come to the Crown to taste and ask for it at the espresso bar! 

aillio bullet r1

Aillio Bullet R1 IBTS Analysis by Evan Gilman 

Unless otherwise noted, we use both the roast.world site and Artisan software to document our roasts on the Bullet. You can find our roast documentation below, by searching on roast.world, or by clicking on the Artisan links below.  

Generally, we have good results starting our 500g roasts with 428F preheating, P6 power, F2 fan, and d6 drum speed. Take a look at our roast profiles below, as they are constantly changing! 

Somehow, Ethiopian coffees just work in roasters. I try not to succumb to believing that inanimate objects have some predilection to behave one way or another, or to make sweeping generalizations, but then why are Ethiopian coffees just so nice to roast!? And Aricha in particular is just delightful year after year, for as long as I’ve been drinking and roasting coffee from this washing station.  

After speaking with Doris and looking at the green metrics of this coffee, I decided that a gentler approach including a lower charge temperature of 428F with a firm P8 power application would help me to pull this coffee slowly but surely through Maillard in order to truly open up this coffee’s delicious floral nature. I started with F2 fan and d6 drum speed as usual, but dropped fan speed to F1 at Turning Point, just until the peak Rate of Rise of 36.7F/min was achieved. From that point, I increased fan to F3 and kept P8 on until just before Yellowing, when I reduced to P7 for roughly a minute, then once more to P6. At 6:20 / 355F, I anticipated the increase in RoR that generally happens before First Crack, and added fan to F4, reducing power to P5 as I noted RoR holding steady around 15F/min. There was a small spike in RoR just before First Crack anyhow, though it was shortly quashed by F5 fan speed, and I dropped this coffee at 10:39 / 391.8F. A bit longer and perhaps a lower end temperature than I would have liked, but I achieved my proportionally balanced roast spending 42% / 43% / 14% in Green, Maillard, and Post-Crack Development respectively.  

All those stats made me think I could have done a few things better, but I’m not sure the cup could get any more delicious. Of course I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but the huge jasmine and candied violet florals, super sweet and complex forest honey sweetness, apple-juicy mouthfeel, and limoncello zippiness sort of had me taken aback. Unsurprisingly, this is just a fantastic coffee that I could see served in any form at all. I’d chew on a handful of beans with a grin on my face, but perhaps a filter drip would make this coffee simply explode with crisp, sweet flavor, while being a bit more appropriate at the dinner table.  

This coffee heralds a delicious crescendo to Ethiopia season. Get it while you can! 

Ikawa Pro

Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano

Our current Ikawa practice compares two sample roast profiles, originally designed for different densities of green coffee. The two roasts differ slightly in total length, charge temperature, and time spent between color change in first crack. You can learn more about the profiles here.  

An excellent coffee through and through I had some trouble deciding which roast made this coffee shine the most. With the help of Chris, I was able to navigate what profile to recommend. When hot these coffees tasted decidedly similar. But as it cooled, the HD roast really brought out some berry and faint honey and floral flavors it also had a hint of some savory notes. The LD roast really enhanced those floral attributes with pear, jasmine, and lemon. More complex and nuanced in this round I had to favor the LD roast. The low and slow roast really took its time nurturing those floral notes and developing them a bit further. With that being said, I took a favor to the LD roast while Chris leaned towards the HD roast. He preferred brightness a bit more and felt it was more interesting. Either way, you can’t go wrong on the profile for this Adorsi coffee, only the beginning of an exciting Ethiopian season here at Royal Coffee  

You can roast your own by linking to our profiles in the Ikawa Pro app here:
Roast 1: Low Density Sample Roast
Roast 2: High Density Sample Roast   

brew

Brew Analysis by Dion Wan 

We’re deep in the midst of Ethiopia season, and surprises continue to unfurl themselves. Our most recent arrival to the Crown Jewel program comes to us from the Adorsi washing station near Yirgacheffe town, and exemplifies what we’ve come to love from Yirgacheffe coffee. For our brew analysis, we explored what this coffee has to offer on the F70, Espresso, and V60. This coffee keeps up with the best Ethiopian coffees with spice, floral, fruity flavors. Our most successful brews came from brews we had on the V60 as well as the F70. 

Starting with the first brew of the V60, we figured out our grind would work best at a 10 on the EK43s. The coarseness kept our brew time in our preferred range. Starting with a dose of 19 grams, with a target H20 dose of 300 grams we reached an exceptional brew that yielded us a TDS of 1.51. This gave us very fruity flavors akin to peach, strawberries, coconut, and pineapple. It almost tasted like a piña colada as it cooled down. A little high on the TDS, but the proof is in the tasting of the pudding.  

Our F70 brew started with the same dose of 19 grams, but coarsened a touch more to 10.5 grind. Our water dose was 300 grams. This gave us a TDS of 1.46. This brew came out having a lot of the same notes but was touch more delicate and tea like with notes of peach tea, honey, currant, and coconut.  

We would be remiss if we didn’t also recommend this coffee as an espresso. It is currently available in our tasting room as such. Our recipe for the day’s tasting was 18.5 grams in and a yield of 37 grams in 31 seconds. From this recipe we got notes of apple, candied lemon, currant, and milk chocolate. 

Overall for this coffee we recommend a slightly coarser grind with a flat bottom brewer for pour-over and 2:1 ratio on the longer side for an espresso recipe.